Katie (your mum; calling her that is still very weird to me) just texted me saying she was trying to sleep, but not doing too well with it. The last time I saw her was just before 1am, and she was in behind these very doors:

I just went downstairs to get some stuff ready, before I inevitably forget to do it later. Katie wanted me to bring 5 things to the hospital tomorrow – five things in addition to the three bags of Whatever that I’m already toting around.

It’s now 1:59.

I’ve remembered 4 of them: The book she was reading; The camcorder (which was a wedding present, by the way, and came with us on our honeymoon); some (more?) socks (for some reason?); and her phone charger. Whatever the fifth element in this continuum was supposed to be, I suspect it’s banished from my mind forevermore. I could text Katie and ask, but I don’t want to risk waking her up.

‘Shake It Out’, by Florence and the Machine just came on my random playlist. That’s a cool song.

Last night, literally minutes after I’d arranged to go see Bruce Springsteen in Dublin with Katie (and our friends who’re almost definitely going to be Uncle Rob and Auntie Erika to you), Katie informed me that her pee was a funny dark colour. This was rare. Dare I say it, this was exciting. I thought, for the first time in 9 months, this pregnancy was going to do something interesting. Frankly, it’s been pretty tedious past the major milestones, so you owed us some jazz hands.

Like all adults in this exciting age of reason and rhyme, we Googled symptoms. As with all Google diagnoses, it turned out to be something between Nothing At All and Total Womb Destruction – the latter of which, now that I type it out, is sort of a rad band name.

Panic wasn’t exactly setting in. As I said, you’ve been such a boring pregnancy event-wise that if I’m being completely honest with you, I’ve often forgot you existed, and stopped marvelling at the process months ago. For a long-ass time, you’ve been nothing more than a parasite that makes my beloved new bride into a swollen, waddling Sigh Factory. Weekly checkups always showed a very strong heart. You’ve been extremely active in the tummy (I call it the Fuchsia Pod) to the point where every single midwife making a note of it has become boring, too. Yes, it’s hard to find the heartbeat because she always moves so much. Yes, we’re aware she’s an active baby. Yes, we’re aware the heartbeat’s very strong once you find it. These are the things I endure for you. It’s like a shitty repeat loop of the most banal small talk. One of the most active babies you’ve seen? Wow. Woo. Yay. All that means to me is that when she’s born, she probably won’t sleep much. That’s not good. Sleep is awesome. If you don’t think that, Fuchsia, I’m not even sure you’re the blood of my blood.

So even now, when something unusual happened, I have to admit I thought it was probably going to turn out to be nothing.

“But she never does anything interesting,” I said. “It’s a boring pregnancy. We know that already.” There may have been a hint of whining in my tone, there. I won’t deny it.

We tried calling the maternity ward, six times, without getting an answer. I wanted to make a crack about the NHS being shit, but that would be the kind of thing a Tory would do. Instead, I blamed the lack of an answer on the Tories, which made me feel much better and infinitely more indignant about the whole situation.

When we eventually got through, Katie explained the situation. They said we should come in, just in case, as it might be any number of things.

We reached the hospital just before 8pm. There were several more incidents with staff that made me think things like: “Hey, shut your mouth for three seconds so my wife can explain what’s happening,” and: “You, madam, are a cunt.” But overall, it went pretty smoothly. Enter 800 tests, stage right, most of which involved me holding things to Katie’s stomach to find your heartbeat. The phrases “The baby’s fine” and “See, that’s a happy baby” joined the rest of the pregnancy’s tedious phrases that – because of their overall niceness – I can’t bring myself to say were exactly unwelcome, but were still a bit, y’know, vague and boring.

Anyway.

Katie’s water had broken, but it was one of the slower, subtler ones rather than a brilliant piss-yourself-downpour, which she’d been dreading and I was totally looking forward to finding hilarious, like an insensitive jackass. And the reason her pee was a funny colour was because it wasn’t just pee. It was, in fact, mostly amniotic fluid.

In what may be the most grotesque thing ever to be amusingly common in pregnancy, you’d triggered one of the signs of foetal distress by, uh, making meconium in the amniotic fluid. While I appreciate that means I don’t need to clean it up (seriously, the horror stories of that stuff have been my Number 1 Terror), and while I know it’s not exactly rare, it does tick a few danger boxes. I’ll be 100% honest: Katie wasn’t scared, she was disgusted. Being told by the nurse that it happens a lot didn’t help her get over it. I wasn’t scared, either. I thought it was gross and high-larious. “Good, strong heart,” they kept saying. “She’s a happy baby.” And all I could think was “Why is she happy? There might still be some poo on her skin. I wouldn’t be happy if I was her. Goddamn, babies are gross.”

So Katie’s staying tonight for observation. After about 5 hours, they kicked me out and told me to phone at 9am tomorrow morning to see if there was (in their words) “anything happening”. Nice. Nice and blase’. Not even “Come back in visiting hours.” It’s “Call first, about mid-morning, or whatever.”

This probably sounds scarier than it is. To explain it better, I’ve just spent those 6 hours listening to your heartbeat and movements, and – perhaps more reassuringly – listening to nurses bang on about how good your heart sounds and how your movements are fine. Katie’s being induced, with proceedings aiming to kick off tomorrow morning. If everything goes wrong at the last minute, she goes in for a C-section. Right now, with her water broken, she’s in the teeny-tiny contractions (and less tiny cramps) of early labour. I was fine to crash in a chair by her bedside, but no dice.

So now I’m here, home, at almost 3am and listening to ‘Fuckin’ Perfect’ by P!ink on my playlist melting into ‘Twilight of the Thunder God’ by Amon Amarth. I can’t sleep. I should probably try. The nurses kept telling me to. Katie kept telling me to. I can tell it’s not going to happen.

I’m excited for your Aaron, you get to meet your daughter soon and see the most amazing thing (in my opinion) a human can make! I wish you and Katie the best of luck in parenthood and I’m sure you’ll make a fantastic if not hilarious Father for her.

Hilarious take on pregnancy! Sounds like she will be here tomorrow! Good luck wont be boring from now on 😛 Also hope you are in the ulster hospital or City hospital. Hope to fuck you arent in rvh or even worse antrim

I became a father in late October last year. I really hope all goes well, and that you enjoy the whole experience. Heads up:
– baby poo does not smell unless/until you feed them formula or solids. Our boy is fully breastfed, nappies are messy but not smelly.
– it is tough, but you can raise a baby and still fit in a few hours of borderlands/dead island/bulletstorm every few days. Headphones are essential, as apparently babies may get distressed by the sounds of bandits being electrocuted. Given your posts, you may substitute ‘Pranking the Rim’: http://chainsawsuit.com/2012/02/16/pranking-the-rim/
– I had a boy (so all his toys are also mine – winning) – however a mate had a baby girl. He is sure that with minimum conversion efforts, My Pretty Ponies may be repurposed into Imperial Guard Rough Riders.

Boring pregnancies are better than “exciting” ones. Our 2nd was an “exciting” one, and involved a C-section oat 36 months and 2 weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Rather not have to go through that again! Good news is that the subject of that little adventure is extremely happy, almost 3, and very active…

Funny as hell. No doubt the sproglet will read the paternal concern inherent in those sentences like I did, rather than seeing you complaining about its poo before its even had a chance to go down its first waterslide.

Fun times. Glad all’s going well. Take a ton of food and Coca-Cola for Katie when a baby starts coming out, as well. These things can go on for a day, and apparently hospitals rarely feed you as well as you’d like. In France, anyway; probably in Ireland too.

Yeah, the magic of pregnancy sure ebbs fast. The first time I heard my daughter’s heartbeat brought tears to my eyes. Now, at scans, I just watch the midwife flick between all the cool image filters on the echography machine, and I think of Predator 2.

You recieve 5 awesome points.
You recieve 20 more if you are abandoning your wife to go to download in the summer and hear James Hetfield try and re-gain his former glory in the Black Album all the way through.

Who? Why?

My name’s Aaron W Dembski-Bowden.

Don’t ask about the W – let’s just forget it exists and forgive my parents for a bizarre choice of middle name. Y’know, I used to tell people it stood for Wolfgang, but no one ever believed me. I’m not a skilled liar.

I write a lot, and people pay me to do it. I argue a lot, but I do that for free. If you want to start paying me to argue, please apply within. My rates would be generous, and my cynical wrath without peer.

I have a cat, but I prefer dogs. Most of my clothes are black, but my favourite colour is orange. I was born in a really dark, grim patch of London, but I moved to the greenest parts of Northern Ireland. This last factoid arises from being in love with a beautiful Irish girl who foolishly agreed to marry me – and that it’s easier to write out here in the middle of nowhere with only fields, cats, and hot redheads for company.